City set to participate in Ute Project meeting

City officials promoted an upcoming Ute Water meeting in Portales at the conclusion of a short council meeting Tuesday night.

Councilor Gary Watkins brought a 45-minute minute meeting to a close by encouraging citizens to attend the public meeting, set to being at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the Memorial Building. Scott Verhines, the director of the Ute Water Project, said the meeting would be an open house for the first hour, then include a 30-minute formal presentation. At about 7:30 p.m., a Q&A session will be set with a panel of people who have knowledge of the project that would pipe drinking water from Ute Lake near Logan to the Clovis-Portales area.

In new business, the council passed a pair of motions involving budgeted funds. The first was to accept a resolution to continue to fund the Community Services Center $49,500 to operate Portales Area Transit.

The center’s fiscal year begins in October, City Manager Debi Lee said, but Lee added that the Department of Transportation had no problem with the timing of the resolution to fund PAT this late in the fiscal year.

The council also approved awarding a $40,484 bid to Golden Equipment Company of Albuquerque for a skid-mounted maintenance distributor. The machine will do asphalt and chip-sealing, according to General Services Director Mike Parkey. The money for the distributors comes out of a $75,000 grant for street equipment.

In other business, the council:

• Presented certificates of appreciation to volunteers for

Portales Teen Court. The program runs every third Tuesday at 6 p.m. at the Roosevelt County Courthouse.

• Presented a mayor’s award to James Hatch for improvement he has done on his family’s property at 120 S. Ave. E, a home Mayor Orlando Ortega called a cornerstone of the community.